Report 249
Report #249 Skillset: Sacraments Skill: Fervor Org: Paladins Status: Completed Aug 2009 Furies' Decision: Is now a permanent def that raises damage/wounding in holy ground and heretic line. Problem: Currently, the Sacraments skillset has little to complement knight combat, and fervor, which lasts around 20-40 seconds, offers only a minor damage boost for power that can be better spent on power attacks or puissance, for instance. 0 R: 0 Solution #1: Make fervor a permanent defence for 8p which adds 10% to damage and wounding while making the user take 10% more damage. The defence can be disabled (and then has to be recast for 8p, similar to surge), and while it is active, Numen cannot be used. The bonus/malus percentages as well as the powercost are only a suggestion, and the required skill rank may have to be reviewed, too. 0 R: 0 Solution #2: Like solution 1, but fervor also reduces equilibrium loss time for Rituals and Celestialism skills by 10% (to make the defence useful for Celestines). 0 R: 0 Solution #3: Like any of the above, but the skill remains a temporary defence. In this case, the power cost should be reduced to 1p and the minumum duration raised a bit (or the duration set to a fixed amount of time). Player Comments: ---on 8/17 @ 03:17 writes: Sacraments could certainly use some attention in regards to its knight users. It would be nice to see more changes that push the skillset closer to the very effective synergies some of the other tertiaries have. Solutions 1 and 3 sound fine- in any event, the skill should at least be worth using. ---on 8/17 @ 12:45 writes: 1 & 3 sound fine, not a big fan of solution 2, messing with eq times can have unforseen results ---on 8/20 @ 02:51 writes: A permanent 10% bonus to damage and wounding for 8p seems just a -wee- bit high, no? The downsides really aren't all that high for a suggestion that gives over a thousand credits worth of artifact (550 credits in terms of wounding runes, and 500 for a pair of elemental runes). Hmm. ---on 8/20 @ 02:53 writes: I have to question Solution #1. While the malus certainly sounds debilitating for a non-Demigod, I have to worry about the huge benefit with small penalty to a Demigod with 10-12k health. A 10% damage reduction will barely put a dent in them at all. All the while, this benefit gives Paladin Demigods (which are already high in the damage/wounding output) more of an unneeded benefit. I'm totally in favour of a Sacraments buff, but this seems to be too little of a penalty on Solution #1. ---on 8/20 @ 13:46 writes: I agree with Nienla's sentiments (and Xenthos's) about the malus. 10% doesn't seem to be enough, but any more and it might make the skill too dangerous for lower levels to use. Solution 3 seems the least drastic, but the time would have to be extended a lot to increase the usefulness of the skill, it seems (on the order of a 100% increase?). If a new, better (and fairer) malus can be determined for Solution 1, go for it. ---on 8/20 @ 21:57 writes: 10% additional damage received is not that little. We're basically talking about a level 1 weakness to all types of damage, including unblockable damage. The discussion about racial resistances and weaknesses that normally only cover specific types of damage suggests that it does indeed matter., and especially with the lack of numen to fall back on, it is a defence you don't always want to have up. Regardless of that, the numbers are only suggestions, even though I cannot change them in the suggestions any more now that the report is finalized. Lowering the bonus damage and wounding is an option, but that should go hand in hand with lowering the penalty and/or allowing numen. I would like to add that pairing the benefits of the skill with a malus should not be viewed as something that needs to be fully balanced against one another; most skills don't have any negative side effects at all. It would probably make most sense to suggest numbers in terms of boni, mali and power cost for this, which will hopefully be taken into consideration even though they cannot be included into the solutions any more. ---on 8/20 @ 22:19 writes: You're right, most don't have benefit and malus, but this one was designed to (that is its 'vision', and it is also very low in Sacraments). I really don't think that the 10% extra damage is in any way an adequate counter to a permanent 10% bonus to damage and wounds dealt. With your comments there, I'm feeling that making it a permanent defense is just not the way to go. So, not solution 1 or 2. 3 has some potential. Maybe make it 2p (one less than Puissance), but still... puissance lasts only for the first hit. Fervor increases damage on (guesstimating at 3s attack times) 6 to 13 hits. During this time you are also taking more damage, but you're meting out a lot more than puissance would (for, at the moment, the same power cost). You do not get the bonus to wounding that puissance gives, but more damage more sipping less applying, in general. ---on 8/22 @ 01:40 writes: The point of puissance in my eyes is to be able to focus on an important (mostly the initial) attack, preferrably a power attack. Also, you can regain some (when well-timed even all) of the power used for puissance before actually having to use it, that's not really an option for a 3p fervor as is. So far, you basically have to choose between powerattacks (or puissance) and fervor, and power attacks are really much more useful overall. That's why I want it to be changed so you don't actually have to choose between those power-consuming skills that aim at similar effects, but rather for it to be able to be stacked on their effects - at a malus. As a sidenote, most non-demigod warriors or even demigods without artifacts have to rely almost solely on wounding to achieve anything against more resilient combatant; the 10% damage boost alone will not help them at all, a little boost to wounding would. ---on 8/23 @ 16:56 writes: Hence the alternate suggestion to make it 2p instead of 3p. You miss out on one power attack, but if you take advantage of the current bonus correctly you should be able to make them sip an extra time or two instead of applying. Absolutely -no- warrior relies -solely- upon wounding. Any warrior relying solely upon wounding is doomed to failure. You throw in damage, you make them sip a little bit. Any time they sip, they've just slowed down their wound healing and you're that much further ahead. This is an essential part of warrior combat... so I dispute your assertion. It's completely wrong. More damage is never a bad thing, more wounding is completely unnecessary on top of that. Especially given the current weapon formulas where people are not really focused on wounding weapons and are more focused on damage weapons (because they do close to the same wounding, + damage to force more sipping). ---on 8/23 @ 20:41 writes: I just had a demigod warrior with 22 strength and 115/85/280 rapiers beat on me for a few minutes without me parrying, stancing, putting up rebounding, sipping, reciting or eating sparkleberry. He wasn't even able to outdamage my regeneration. Now sure, I am a demigod with a truefavour in plate myself, but this should give a hint what non-runed weapons in the hands of non-demigods can do. Yes, alot of warriors need to rely 100% on wounding against tougher opponents, unless in groups with other damaging classes. 10% more damage will change pretty much nothing for them. ---on 8/23 @ 20:47 writes: Oh, aforementioned warrior was using aggressive combatstyle, too. ---on 8/23 @ 22:58 writes: Who is this demigod warrior, then? Because something doesn't sound at all right with your example. If they've got full and unfettered access they should be able to get you bleeding, burning up mana, burning up health, and sipping. This test sounds rather flawed. ---on 8/23 @ 22:59 writes: And, by flawed, I mean that it sounds like he wasn't using his power attacks, or was constantly attacking a single location, was not trying to use afflictions to cause extra damage, etc. ---on 8/24 @ 01:13 writes: There were no power attacks (but I also didn't even recite or eat sparkleberries), but aside from that, bleeding amount or damage from afflictions are nothing that is amplified by Fervor, nor the mana used for clotting. Also, for afflictions, you need - yes, wounds. The test was solely to show that normal attack damage - exactly what is increased at the moment by Fervor - can be ridiculously low and have very little to no impact. Thus, my pledge for Fervor to give a slight boost to wounding, as well. ---on 8/24 @ 22:25 writes: You are completely disregarding my entire point, which is that it is the combination of the two-- INCLUDING THE DAMAGE-- which is effective. Increased damage always helps, because it is going to over time force more sipping than otherwise. Because... there is more that needs to be sipped. This is, as I said, the basic premise of warrior combat. We don't kill anyone with damage alone, but we also don't kill with wounds alone. It's just not very feasible. ---on 8/24 @ 23:27 writes: I will clarify that by 'anyone' I mean 'competent fighters', though, before that's used as a counter-point! ---on 8/24 @ 23:49 writes: I believe I went into 'your entire point' by stating that the part of direct weapon damage in the equation is very low for many knights, thus the 10% increase to exactly that part of the equation is pretty irrelevant, too. ---on 8/25 @ 01:29 writes: Except that's not the case at all. Try stacking wounds up on someone with stance/parry/rebound while doing absolutely no damage at all. You're completely ignoring how warriors work, here. ---on 8/25 @ 02:16 writes: Actually Xenthos, as an unartied demigod warrior I was 100% wounding and killed people just fine like that. Not that I wanted to be all wounds, but my damage was just so low that I could never ever hope to make someone sip. I remember several occasions I had Melville truelocked and after like 30-40s of straight swinging I had to finish him with burstorgans or sacrifice because even without sip (which obviously he didn't have to do anyway), sparkle, and scroll he wouldn't go down to damage. Hence I never used skills like omen because they simply added nothing to my offense. Still deciding what I think about this report, but Veyrzhul is right about that much. ---on 8/25 @ 02:44 writes: I'm talking about now, Ceren. Where Demigods don't have level 3 regeneration, where Trueplate has been massively nerfed, and... even in your example, you're talking about having him truelocked (if they aren't curing wounds, then you can stack up as much as you'd like over time and damage doesn't matter). However, all of my comments are in regards to when they are actually able to cure. There is a reason that at that time, warrior vs. warrior combat was nearly impossible (and there have been numerous tweaks to reduce that impossibility). Would you have been able to kill him with wounds if he was applying every balance? I don't really think so. ---on 8/25 @ 03:19 writes: Speaking with Melville, he states that this was when he was a Titan and after some of the above changes (though he had Titan regen and was standing in Tainted ground for the regen aspect of it). What was the damage on your weapons, Ceren? ---on 8/25 @ 04:35 writes: However, all I really feel that I have to say is: Look at this in the way it buffs warriors with artifacts. The "think of the unartifacted warrior" comments really don't fly because it buffs up artifacted warriors even more (as it is percentage based) than the unartifacted ones, and artifacted warriors really don't need this kind of -permanent- boost. So I will resuggest dropping the power cost to 2. ---on 8/25 @ 15:42 writes: Well, obviously you have to build pretty good wounding on someone to truelock him, so you know. Far as arties go, I don't think we can say their existence invalidates a direct wounding buff. Almost all other warrior tertiaries have one: the precision/speed component of weaponaura in Moon/Night, swiftstripes in Stag, str boost of arclich in Necromancy, and the dog companion in tracking all lead to direct increases in wounding output. ---on 8/25 @ 16:13 writes: I've thought about it, and I think solution 1 is really not going to cut it. Do you really want a defense that increases damage done to you and never fades, and then costs 8p every time you choose to drop and recast it? Here's my suggestion: Fervour will remain a temporary defense with the cost raised to 4p. It'll last a full 60 seconds. It'll give a 20-25% buff to damage and a 10% buff to wounding (not as much wounding increase as you think when you consider you're giving up a round of lunges for it). Instead of increasing damage taken by 10%, it'll cause you to suffer 25% of all the damage you inflict, of course including the buffed damage from fervour itself. You cannot cast numen while fervour is up, and if you cast fervour while you have numen up, numen will fade. If possible to code, damage will only be returned to you once per prompt to prevent taking several thousand damage from avatar wrath hitting like 10 people. And fully usable with quickening. I think a powerful skill like that would pretty much justify Sacraments for Paladins in a way it hasn't been since... forever. ---on 8/29 @ 16:57 writes: I think it is pretty clear that the absolute last thing that Warriors need at this point in time is -more- damage, Ceren. There is already a huge rift between the 'haves' and 'have-nots' in the warrior world. Once you've maxed out the damage, put on elemental runes to convert a third of the damage to something harder to block, and then start stacking up the +damage abilities... things get ugly. Let's take a warrior who does 800 base, and a warrior who does 2k base. 25% of the 800 is +200 damage. 25% of the 2000 is +500 damage. The two guilds that can stack an uncurable +% damage on top of generic bonuses are Night Ebonguard (shadow steal), and Sacramanets Paladins (fervor). A +% to damage is, for a high-end warrior, far more effective than +10 points to damage. This is why I don't mind the power cost being reduced for fervor slightly, but there is no reason whatseover to make Warrior damage even -more- insane. Unless, of course, there is a desire to re-write how +damage bonuses stack-- it might be time to introduce "DMP" for +damage effects as well as for damage prevention. For example, the first 10% bonus is +10%, 20% gives +15%, 30% gives +18%, or something along these lines. This would affect more than just warriors, it would affect everyone stacking +damage percents... but it is time to consider this. These effects can be stacked by pretty much every guild except Druids to widen the gulf between high-end and middle-end dramatically. Another alternative is to cap how much damage a PC can do to another PC to never being more than 1/4 of the player's health or something. If one of these is done, then fine. You can ask for a Fervor that gives more than +10% damage for a while. As-is, SIXTY SECONDS of +25% damage? On top of all the other bonuses available? Such as war-domoth, war blessing, puissance, etc. Type MORE to continue reading. (90% shown)